Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Story Title: "My Feet Will Brace Themselves"
Summary: One day, she tells herself. One day I will be sung about.
Character/Relationship(s): Rhaegar Targaryen/Lyanna Stark, Brandon Stark, Eddard Stark, Benjen Stark, Rickard Stark, Elia Martell, Ashara Dayne, Arthur Dayne, Robert Baratheon
Rating: Hard T
Warnings: Major character death, language, typical GRRM stuff.
Story Word Count: 8000+
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.
Notes: For Morgan, with thanks to Ellie Goulding's new CD Halycon, without which this never would have been finished.
My Feet Will Brace Themselves
There are winter roses in the gardens of Winterfell.
They are beautiful things, really. Delicate and soft, a darker blue in the center but as the petals swirl out farther they get lighter and lighter until the very edge is almost white. Occasionally they have to be pruned, because if they don't they'll choke everything around them.
They have thorns too, of course. Roses always do.
There are winter roses in the gardens of Winterfell.
Lyanna has never liked blue roses.
.
Lyanna tires of snow, because snow means that she has to spend more time inside, working on her needlework. Old Nan watches her as she works on each stitch, one by one, trying to make the thread into a shape.
She is terrible at this, really. Her stitches are too big and she just doesn't care about any of it, so she pauses for a moment and asks Old Nan for something that she knows will keep her distracted so that Lyanna won't have to sew anymore.
"Old Nan, what do you know about the south?"
The old woman looks up and pauses her needlework, making Lyanna sigh in relief and set hers aside as well.
"I only know what they say in songs, because there are never any songs sung about the north."
"I'll change that," Lyanna promises. She already has ideas about how she can do just that, about how she will be the she-wolf that they will sing about for seasons to come. And it won't be because of her beauty or because of who she fell in love with.
Lyanna wants people to sing of her prowess in battle, like her brother Brandon. She wants them to sing about the she-wolf who rode and fought and fucked like a man. They will say great things about her, about how she had somehow gotten out from behind the tall walls of Winterfell, maneuvered her way around the mazes of courtesies, and somehow overcame the obstacles of her three brothers and especially her father.
One day, she tells herself. One day I will be sung about.
.
All of Winterfell prepares when there is news of Brandon and Rickard returning, and there is a great hustle and bustle as Lyanna goes through the castle in her best dress, itchy and laced up but she knows that she looks pretty in it, and that's the important part.
Lyanna does not claim to have a preference—has never even said the words out loud—but everyone knows that Brandon is her favorite brother. Benjen is too young to be any fun, but she loves him just the same because he is the one who practices swordplay with her in the godswood with sticks they have found, and he is the one that is around most often because Ned is fostering with Jon Arryn and Brandon is having adventures.
She loves Ned as well, sweet Ned, dutiful Ned, but he isn't wild enough for her. Ned would rather stay home than go somewhere. He will be a good husband—he would rather stay at home than go to a whorehouse, though Lyanna knows that he has gone to at least one, seeing as how his best friend is Robert Baratheon. He is an honorable man and will make their father proud.
And then there is Brandon, dear sweet Brandon. He can make her laugh until her stomach aches and her face hurts, is the one that will go riding with her for days and days if she asked him to, the truest and wildest wolf in the family, people whispered. If Lyanna didn't love him so much, she'd hate him.
"Lyanna!" Benjen cries, looking younger than he is in his best clothes with his hair all mussed. "They've seen father, and Brandon too. They're almost here!"
He runs to the yard, beckoning for her over his shoulder and she knows that he wants to race. She picks up her skirts and runs after him, cursing how heavy they are, before catching up with him and sending Benjen face down onto the ground. Lyanna wants to be the first one that Brandon saw, even if that means shoving her baby brother into the dirt.
She gets there just as soon as the gates are rising, opening, and she can hear Brandon and her father's laughs mingling together. She stands to the side like a dutiful daughter, Benjen eventually coming up behind her with dust all over his front. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the glare her little brother gives her, and instead focuses on Brandon and her father.
Lyanna flies into Brandon's arms when he is off his horse, and he smells like a traveler, like horse and sweat and the faint smell of smoke. She squeezes as tight as she can and Brandon does the same to her, and it is almost painful, the feeling of his arms around her.
But then she lets go and looks into her brother's face. Behind him she can see her father shaking his head before he focuses on Benjen, and Lyanna doesn't care about what her father thinks. He would chastise her if she was doing something too horribly unladylike or dishonorable.
"So how was the Tully girl?" she asks.
"Beautiful, thank the gods. But don't worry, she's not as beautiful as you," Brandon adds when he sees the look on Lyanna's face, and she laughs. "Yes, Catelyn Tully will make a fine Lady of Winterfell. Family, duty, honor and all that."
"Don't sound so excited, brother," Lyanna teases. "People might think that you're pleased to be limited to one woman for the rest of your life."
Brandon rolls his eyes and kisses her forehead. "I am going to go take a bath, I will see you later."
"Lyanna," Rickard Stark says from behind her, "it is good to see you."
"Of course. Benjen and I missed you so, didn't we?"
Benjen began nodding. "Winterfell is nothing without you, Father," Benjen tells their father and it's all Lyanna can do not to start laughing again.
Rickard's lips twitch at his son's obvious curtosies as well, but he doesn't respond. "Lyanna, I have some news for you."
"Really?" she asks, her heart suddenly thrumming in excitement. She loves gossip, loves little bits of news from far south, loves to hear about far off places. She had wanted to go on the trip to Riverrun with
Of course, her father would never gossip, and his stories are usually boring, but she can't help but hope.
"Yes." Rickard does smile this time, and she wonders what that is about. "Ned is coming back to Winterfell soon, Ned and Robert Baratheon, and I will tell you then."
Her heart slows down, and she begins to be suspicious instead of elated. But she ignores her fears and smiles back to her father. Surely, surely Rickard would not do that for her, not when she had flowered not but only a year ago.
And especially not to someone like Robert Baratheon. Lyanna had only met him twice, both times when he came to Winterfell with Ned, but that had been more than enough.
.
Lyanna has always wanted to see Dorne.
She has read so much about it—the sand dunes, the burning hot sun, the fruit trees—and she thinks that it sounds like the complete opposite of the North.
She has read the history, read about how the Dornish would not give up their independence, would not bend the knee. She has read about Sunspear, about Unbent, unbowed, unbroken, and she longs to go there someday, to walk without shoes and burn her feet on the sand.
Dorne sounds like a place where a man can get so hot that he would burn and sweat, like somewhere that it never snows in the summer and traps the people indoors. Dorne, with its princes and princesses, seems like a place where a women can make her own fate, and her own decisions.
.
The morning that Ned is set to arrive in Winterfell Brandon looks enraged. She heard one of the maids whispering about a broken chamber pot in his rooms, and that sounded like her brother in one of his rages.
Lyanna has a new gown on, made specifically for this day, but she ignores that to go find her brother in the godswood. Robert Baratheon can see her dirty and disheveled, she doesn't care. If things are going to go the way that she fears they are, she hopes that this might make him change his mind.
There is one spot in particular that her brother goes, far from the weirwood trees but still in the sacred place of the gods. Lyanna has found Brandon there more than once when he was incredibly angry, so angry that it frightened even her.
She finds him where she expected to, sitting with his head on his knees. This takes her aback and for a moment she hovers in place, touching the bark of a tree with her fingertips. She hadn't expected this. She'd expected her brother to be walking, to be ranting and raving even if there was no one to listen.
The last thing Lyanna had thought to see would be her brother sitting, defeated, looking like a weak and broken man. That was not her brother, not to her, not to anyone.
He lifts his head and sees her, and Lyanna finally steps into the clearing, close enough for her brother to touch if he wants to, but he doesn't even try. "I tried to stop this, tried to get him to consider someone closer to Winterfell. I am so sorry, Lyanna."
"What," she begins slowly, "are you talking about?" She wants the conformation, but oh, she doesn't. She doesn't want to know, doesn't want to have to start contemplating spending the rest of her life with Robert Baratheon, doesn't want to imagine a life as the Lady of Storm's End.
He is a high lord, and marriage to him might be better than it would be to most, but Robert is still a drunk and a whoremonger to boot. No woman would ever be happy being his wife, and especially not Lyanna.
"You are to marry Robert Baratheon at winter's end."
For a moment it is as if the world paused. She can't tell if the world is trying to go on without her, or if she is trying to go on without the world. There is nothing worse than this, nothing worse than the confirmation that she will never have songs sung about her, that she will never be able to ride like a man, or fight like one, or even fuck like one.
In the space of a heartbeat Lyanna can see her future spread out in front of her, see the grey and silver gown that she will wear for her wedding, see the cloak that she would wear only to have it taken off and a golden and black one in its place. She sees herself stuck in Storm's End while her husband fucks his way through the nearest villages and then coming home to her, stinking of alcohol and sex only to do it all over again with her. She sees herself bearing dark headed children and allowing them to run into the mountains while she turns into a ghost of herself, and that is not what she wants, not at all.
Brandon watches her closely, as if he is sure that she is about to cry, and Lyanna turns her back on him so that he does not see that she is close enough to tears. But she won't cry, not about this. Instead she saves every tear that she wants to shed, because she knows that she will need them in the future.
When she turns around she sees her brother standing up, her knight in shining armor, and she knows in that moment that Brandon will always be the one that saves her, in the end.
.
There is a feast, and before the dancing can begin Rickard stands up and announces, "And so I would like to declare my daughter, Lyanna Stark's, betrothal to Robert Baratheon of Storm's End." Cheers ring around the hall, and Lyanna looks at all of her father's men and thinks, traitors.
Robert smiles at her across the long table and she attempts to smile back before bringing her cup to her lips and taking a long drink of wine. She does not want to pretend to be happy about this, but she knows that she must. Later tonight she will go for a long ride, damn the consequences, and she will try to get lost in the woods and never return.
But for now she must be the dutiful daughter and not the girl who can fight with a sword as good as her brothers.
When the music begins she stands up and strides to the other side of the room before Robert Baratheon can ask her to dance. She will not dance with him tonight, absolutely will not, and if he asks her she will just tell him that she deems it inappropriate. Or that he can go fuck himself, she has not yet decided.
Ned follows her to the other side of the room, probably at his best friend's prompting, and in that moment she loves her brother, she really does. She likes knowing that there are good men in the world, and that all of her brothers are one of those, but Ned especially.
Ned, with his plain face, Ned with his good heart, Ned with his horrible taste in friends.
"What do you think of all this?" he asks quietly, and they both watch as Robert leads some women across the room. Unlike the last time that he visited he didn't have any women sitting in his lap, but Lyanna remembers and just because he is behaving tonight doesn't mean anything.
"That man will never keep to one bed," she answers finally. "I hear that he has a daughter in the Vale, don't tell me that it isn't true," Lyanna says when it looks like her brother is about to defend his friend.
Ned closes his mouth, only to open it again. "What he did before the betrothal has no consequence. He will honor his vows, I promise you."
"Or what, will you be the one to cut off his cock? I think not."
"No," Ned agree, and there is a smile in his eyes even if it doesn't grace his face. "That would probably be Brandon."
Lyanna laughs then, and Robert looks up from the woman's breasts to see brother and sister happy together, and he gives her a real grin. She finds her own sliding from her face so she turns away and tries to find Benjen.
He is probably the only person that she wants to dance with, at this moment.
.
She begins to fear the end of winter. It's a strange thing, for her feelings to change so quickly. She normally abhors the snow, hates the cold and misses the sun, but when she beings to not need as many furs to make herself warm, she begins to want to go back in time.
The betrothal was final, her marriage looming over her. Not even when she had gotten on her knees in front of Rickard, when she had begged and pleaded—even raged—at him to make this stop he had denied her.
She would stay in Winterfell for the rest of her life—surely Brandon would allow her that—rather than have to go to the Stormlands but that is neither hear nor there.
The one good thing about spring, though, is that there can be tournaments now. There is one in Harrenhall, and her brothers and father are both going. Only Benjen and Lyanna are to be left behind, and Lyanna does not want that.
She wants to travel south, even if it only is just once, and even if it is only an illusion, as her own woman.
"Please, Father," she pleads at dinner that night, Benjen quiet because she had warned him beforehand about what she was doing. "It would mean so much to me if we could go."
"I don't think—" Lord Rickard began, but she continues so that she didn't have to hear him.
"Lord Robert will be there, won't he?" Lyanna asks, and she can feel Benjen kick her from under the table. She refuses to look at him, knowing that if she did she would start to laugh and that would ruin everything. "It would be so nice to see my betrothed again."
"You did not even speak to him when he was in Winterfell," her father protests.
And that is true, she cannot deny that, can not deny that she refused to talk to Robert and had heard Ned comforting him and stroking the stag's ego by telling him that it was because of Lyanna's shy maidenhood that she was afraid to even speak to him. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but of course Robert Baratheon does not know her and does not want to.
"I was too afraid. But this shall be different, and maybe he will win and crown me the queen of love and beauty! He is a good jouster, is he not?"
Rickard looks skeptically at her, but Lyanna gazes back innocently as she chews a piece of bread. "Fine," he decides finally and Lyanna's heart is dancing in her chest. She is going south, and to a tournament besides. "We leave tomorrow."
After dinner, when it is just Benjen and her, Lyanna rounds on her youngest brother. "Ben, are you bringing any armor?" she asks.
Though Lyanna is slightly taller than her brother, he is the closest in her size and she needs armor if this is to work. She will ride in this tournament, and she will win. She can imagine the faces of the whole crowd, imagines the look on Robert's face when she names him the queen of love and beauty and can hardly wait.
"No, not really."
"Well, bring it! And a tourney sword if you can."
"What are you planning to do, Ly?" Benjen asks, and she can see that he has figured out her plan. Brandon might be her favorite brother, and Ned the one that she trusts the most, but Benjen is the one that knows her best of all. In that moment she decides that this is a horrible thing.
"Why would you assume that I am going to do something?"
"Because you never do nothing," he answers, and Lyanna musses her brother's hair and doesn't answer. This will be her secret, and hers alone, even if she does need some help along the way.
.
On the morning they are to leave Benjen is clutching at a bag attached to his saddle with a almost delicate precision.
"What's that, then?" Lyanna asks him, and he doesn't answer her until she kicks him when she knows that her father isn't looking.
"They're winter roses, from the gardens. Father told me that we could bring some, or else the crowns would all be made from the flowers from Highgarden."
Lyanna's nose wrinkles at the thought of Highgarden. She is sure that the castle is beautiful—roses everywhere and covering everything, choking the brick and climbing up and over the very top, but she cannot imagine staying there very long. The stink of roses would never be washed away, and she doesn't know how well she could stand them.
"We must never let the Tyrells beat us, then," Lyanna answers. "Be careful with your roses."
.
The first night of the tournament there is a feast, and the campground is the most beautiful thing that Lyanna has ever seen. The tents sparkle in the sun and their house colors and sigils fly. She sees Frays and Tyrells and Martells, but most of all she sees the Targaryens.
Their dragons are everywhere, black and red dominant among the house colors. She hadn't been expecting for the king and queen to be there, or the prince and princess.
Princess Elia is not beautiful, but she is delicate and dainty, and there is a stregnth beneath her gaze that tells Lyanna that this is not a women to be deterred by being a foreign princess to a Targaryen court. People whisper about her frailty, about how the birth of Prince Aegon had almost killed her, but Lyanna does not see any of that in the princess.
The princess is sitting next to Ashara Dayne outside a tent when Lyanna approaches. She had seen her brother looking at the beautiful Lady Ashara, but she knows that Ned will never speak to the beautiful women. She really is as beautiful as everyone says, and as Lyanna looks at Ashara and Elia she realizes that they are a matched set, complimenting each other perfectly.
"Your highness, my lady," Lyanna says finally, curtsying and reciting every single courtesy in her head that she had ever learned.
"Lady Lyanna," Princess Elia smiles at her, and Lyanna takes back every thought she ever had about Elia not being beautiful. "Are you enjoying the festivities?"
"Yes, I have never been to a tournament before."
"Don't worry, they mostly consist of men measuring their cocks before the whole court, trying to decide who is the bigger man. You haven't missed much," Lady Ashara answers, and Lyanna hardly knows what to say.
"Ashara!" Elia reprimands, but Lyanna knows that it's for her own benefit. She can tell that Elia wants to smile, to laugh even, as she tries to hide that.
Then Lyanna begins laughing, because Ashara would eat Ned alive, but also because of Ashara's cutting wit and the fact that she approached the princess of Westeros and her companion and was not turned away.
"Thank you," Lyanna responds, and curtsies before leaving with a smile on her face.
She hopes Brandon asks her what is so funny, because she can't wait to tell him what Ashara said.
She's walking back to her father's tent, hoping one of her brothers will be there so she doesn't have to be alone, when she sees three squires beating one of the Reeds. It can only be a Reed, because he is a crannogmen through and through.
"That's my father's man you're kicking!" she roars, and sees a tourney sword left forgotten on the ground and picks it up, brandishing it. The sword feels level in her hands, and Lyanna wishes that it was real, wishes that she could have the sword that Benjen brought for her instead.
The sword is different from the sticks that she had practiced with, but she can do this. She must. Cruelty to anyone is abhorrent, but especially so when it is someone who entrust the Starks with their care. That is one of the things that her father had taught her.
The bullies all look up, frightened, and she can swear that one's pants are darker than they were a moment before. "Go, before I run you through."
They leave, and she crouches down to help the Reed. "Let me take you to our tent, my brothers will be there and they will want to hear about this."
The crannogman limps, but she doesn't attempt to help him more than she already has. Men are always prideful to a fault, and though he hasn't insulted her the way that her brothers would have, she does not want to wound him anymore.
The healing supplies that her brothers brought for themselves are easy enough to find, and she binds Howland Reed's wounds and smiles at him. He does not seem to want to talk to her, and she's fine with that.
Her brothers come into the tent all together, so she introduces Howland to them, and explains what happened and why they were in the tent together. "You really must come to feast tonight. You can eat and drink with us, if you like."
Finally, Howland seemed to open his mouth. "I couldn't...m'lady."
"Of course you can!" Lyanna insists. "You're highborn, just like everyone else. Benjen here will find you suitable clothes, won't he, Benjen?"
She sends Benjen a hard look, and he seems to get the message. "Of course," her youngest brother answers, and goes off to find something for the crannogman to wear immediately.
The feast is the grandest thing that Lyanna has ever seen in her life. The Targaryens have quite outdone themselves in their attempt to outshine everyone else, and Lyanna has to admit that they are quite stunning.
Princess Elia and Lady Ashara are glittering, jewels at their ears and in their hair, but Lyanna doesn't feel like she can approach them, not here, not now.
Instead she eats and drinks and laughs with her brothers, until she sees the three squires, all sitting together.
"Those are the boys that hurt Howland!" Lyanna says without thinking, and all her brothers turn and look.
"If you want retribution and suitable armor, we are sure that Benjen has some that can fit," Brandon says before drinking from his chalice.
"I..." Howland begins, but Lyanna doesn't listen. Instead she kicks Benjen under the table and shakes her head at him, just a bit for him to notice. Howland won't wear that armor and get his retribution. Instead, she will, for him.
The feast is long and loud, but when Prince Rhaegar stands up everyone begins to queit.
"Oh, here we go again," Brandon says, rolling his eyes. He leans in towards Lyanna and begins to whisper. "The prince seems to think that he has some talent with a harp, and as such is forever writing and singing songs. It gets quite tiresome, honestly."
"Is he any good?" Lyanna asks. She studies the dragon prince, and realizes that he really is handsome, possibly the handsomest man there. He is even more handsome than her oldest brother, and that is something that Lyanna can't decide is good or bad.
"You can decide for yourself," Brandon answers and that is the last thing that Lyanna hears before Rhaegar begins.
Rhaegar sings of a love lost, a beautiful maiden with flaxen hair who he cannot live without. Normally this would make Lyanna laugh, but she can't, not this time. Rhaegar's voice is amazing and beautiful, the best that she has ever heard. All of the singers that have come to Winterfell cannot compare with the prince, not truly.
Lyanna doesn't realize that there is rain on her face before Rhaegar is done and and Benjen is laughing at her. "Lyanna, you ninny, it wasn't even sad!" he jeers, and Lyanna doesn't even think before she pours all of her wine on Benjen's head before whirling away and trying to get Rhaegar Targaryen out of her head.
.
She doesn't like waiting, but she has to wait until the end of the tournament before she can challenge the three squires. Lyanna had wanted to watch, but had told her father that she had a terrible headache and could not honestly believe that he hadn't seen through her, but he had.
Benjen had lingered in the tent, but when she shooed him out he left quickly. Her brother was an atrocious liar, but it would have to do. If either of her other brothers so much as whiffed a hint of this they would never let her out of their sight and that would not do.
When the tournament ends the squires are all champions, and Lyanna makes her way through the stands and onto the grounds where they stand, throwing her gauntlet in front of all three of them. Everyone pauses, and Lyanna can practically feel the breath in their throats.
No one knows this armor, no one knows that it is a girl underneath all of the chainmail and metal, and Lyanna is smiling. This is a wonderful day, for her, for every woman. She will beat these quivering idiots when they challenge her.
"The challenge is for all of you," she says, making her voice deeper than normal, and she can feel her words reverberate in the armor.
"Then we accept," the Blount boy says while the Fray and Haigh boys looked at each other behind his back in alarm. "One at a time."
This time the simple on Lyanna's face is predatory, and they line up one by one and lose to her each time. Their blood splatters on the grass and she loves the fact that she puts it there. Serves them right to lose to the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as she called herself when asked. The shield is what prompted the name and she finds it fitting, because she truly is laughing.
The looks on their faces are beyond worth it when they have to hand over their horses and armor. "Thank you," she tells them as she walks away with it all. She goes to the knights, putting her laughing shield right in their faces. "Teach your squires honor, they have none," Lyanna says before walking away with her prizes.
Where she is to hide armor and horses she has no idea, but she will figure out a way to do this.
.
There is a feast again that night, and her father has noticed that she's been missing. "Where have you been?" he demands. Rickard seems on edge, his eyes darting to the entrance of the tent, but Lyanna pretends not to see this.
"I went for a walk, is all. My headache got better and I needed something quiet to do," she replies quietly.
"Oh. Good."Her father paces across the tent, his strides as long as they would be in Winterfell's great hall even though the tent is smaller by far.
Ned is the one who comes to the door, and the sight of him makes her father relax. "Have they found him?" Rickard demands.
"Who?" Lyanna asks.
"The Knight of the Laughing Tree. Robert Baratheon and Richard Lonmouth are absolutely hellbent on unmasking him. And King Aerys has declared this man as his enemy, and has sent Rhaegar to search for him in the woods."
Lyanna's heart sinks to the bottom of her stomach. She needs to go get the armor—the direwolf seal of the Starks is on the inside of the armor that she had borrowed from Benjen, and her brother is not getting blamed for this. She had not realized that being a knight could bring so much bother.
"But...why? If he is a knight..."
"Yes, but a knight that no one has even heard of before? No one knows who this man is, and this is dangerous for all of us. When Aerys gets an idea into his head..." Rickard trails off before quieting. Harrenhall is nothing like Winterfell, they can't say anything out here. Anyone could be listening, her father had told her on the ride south, and suddenly Lyanna believed him.
"I don't want you going anywhere without one of your brothers or I," Rickard turns on her suddenly. "I don't want you involved in this mess."
"Of course," Lyanna agrees, but she is already plotting how she is going to get out of the tent that night.
.
In the end it isn't much harder than waiting until her father gets good and drunk—something that he rarely indulges in, but around the friends of his youth it is harder to resist—and then sneaking out of the tent.
She doesn't remember exactly where she hid the armor, but she has a general idea and she heads that way. The woods at night are no scarier than they are during the day, and Lyanna feels like she has company when she hears a wolf howl in the distance.
She's just recognizing some of the trees that she had found before, even though the moon made their faces change, when she sees a glint of armor in the moon and sighs in relief. She sends a quick prayer to the gods as she rushes to it, and when Lyanna bends over she does not expect the cold bite of metal against the back of her throat.
"Show yourself," she hears a man whisper, and with hear heart turned to ice she turns around. Perhaps other girls would be afraid, but other girls are not the she-wolf of Winterfell and they don't have snow in their veins. Whoever this is might end up being the death of her, but she will not go dishonored.
His face is lost in the shadows, but she can see well enough to notice that his eyes widen. He was not expecting her more than she was expecting him.
The man that wants to kill her is the dragon prince himself.
"Lady Lyanna?" he asks, louder this time, and she nods. Slowly he removes the point of the blade from her neck, and she finds that she lets out a breath that she hadn't been holding.
"Prince Rhaegar," she replies and they simply stand there looking at each other.
Up close, with his face fully bathed in moonlight, she can see that he is even more beautiful than he was when he was singing. His hair is cut short, but it suits him, and he really is the most attractive man that she has ever seen.
"Are you the Knight of the Laughing Tree?"
Slowly, she nods. And then he starts to laugh, laughing until he is bent over and his face is distorted with amusement.
"Forgive me," he says when he is finally done. "I wasn't expecting the Knight to be a lady."
"Ladies can fight too," she argues stubbornly. She doesn't like it when people laugh at her, not even when princes do it. In fact, that is almost worse. Lyanna knows that she beat those squires honorably, and knows that she was fantastic while doing it. "They are people too, meant for more than to fuck and lock up in castles, despite what people say."
That makes the amusement melt out of Rhaegar's face. "I didn't realize that I had offended you."
"Well, if you're going to send me to your father, just do it now." Already Lyanna is picturing a fiery death, one where her lungs fill with smoke and her body turns into little more than ash the flies away in the wind. "Though if it pleases you I'd rather have a quick death."
"I'm not going to let my father kill you, that I promise."
"Why, because I am a girl?"
"No. Because those squires deserved it. I saw what they did to Howland Reed, and I'm very glad that someone gave him the justice and satisfaction that he needed. Just, please don't do it again. My father would have your head this time, and Robert Baratheon and Richard Lonmouth as well."
"Robert Baratheon won't do anything to me, he is my betrothed," Lyanna finds herself saying, and she doesn't exactly know why, she just does.
"Then he is a very lucky man indeed," Rhaegar says, and suddenly she relaxes.
Lyanna doesn't find herself beautiful—knows that she isn't in fact—but the way that Rhaegar is looking at her makes her heart beat faster, just a little bit. It seems as though Princess Elia doesn't even matter, even though she had met the princess just days before and liked her very much.
"I suppose," Lyanna shrugs. "Now, can I please get my armor and leave?"
"By all means, Lady Lyanna," Rhaeager smiles at her and puts his sword away. "Would you like an escort?"
"No, no thank you," she says, just thinking about what her father, her brothers—what Robert—would say if they saw her walking with Rhaegar Targaryen back to her tent, alone. "If you were someone else, maybe, but I'm afraid you can't. Shouldn't you be looking for the Knight of the Laughing Tree anyway?"
"Of course," Rhaegar says, and smiles at her in a way that makes her heart twist. "It would be easier, however, to find him if I had his shield."
"By all means," she smiles back, and gives it to him. Underneath the shield their fingers touch and Lyanna feels a jolt of something pass through their fingers until she simply lets the shield go and snatches her fingers away from him as if he burned her.
He probably will. He is a dragon, after all.
.
Lyanna loves the tournament. When she is married to Robert—and oh, how she hates to think this, but it is inevitable now—she will make sure that Storm's End hosts plenty of tourneys. She loves the horses, the smell of sweat and blood in the air.
She loves cheering and yelling, and watching her brother ride. She had given Brandon a token that morning, even though he had lost against Rhaegar Targaryen.
Lyanna had to admit, even though she hadn't wanted to, that she had been watching Rhaegar ride with more interest than she should have. If Lyanna was a proper girl she would have been watching Robert instead, even though he had lost early that morning and had no tokens from her whatsoever.
Rhaegar won every match that he rode in easily, until it was just Barristan Selmy against the prince. Despite herself Lyanna found herself cheering for Ser Barristan, who was one of the knights of the Kingsguard and who Ned had said was going to win.
"Ser Barristan has this easily," Ned tells her as they started forward.
And yet, it is Ser Barristan that falls off his horse. Lyanna can hardly believe it, and she stands up and begins to cheer as do several others. From her vantage point Lyanna can see Princess Elia smile, and Lyanna is already rolling her eyes about who is going to get crowned the queen of love and beauty.
Men are so predictable, she thinks, but she also knows that for Prince Rhaegar to give the crown to anyone else would be a grave insult to Princess Elia.
She quashes down the imagine of Rhaegar giving her the crown, because that could never happen. And yet when she sees Rhaegar heading towards the box that Princess Elia is sitting in she feels the heaviness of disappointment settle over her.
At least, until Rhaegar goes past Elia and places the roses—the ones that she recognizes as coming from Winterfell, the ones that she remembers Benjen carrying so carefully in his bag—in her lap.
The crowd suddenly went quiet, the cheering done, and the smiles all died. Lyanna feels heat rushing to her cheeks, but doesn't say anything, not even when Rhaegar smiles softly at her before riding away.
She most certainly does not put the crown on.
.
"How could this happen?" Brandon roars later, after he had pulls Lyanna from the stands and marches them both to the tent. "Why would he give the crown to you?"
"I don't know, I really don't!" she insists, and feels the taste of guilt and blood in her mouth. She has yet to let go of the crown, even though she doesn't care for roses, even though she had never wanted this.
"Yes you do, it's something, what happened? I know you, Lyanna Stark."
"I swear of it, I did nothing!"
Brandon pulls himself together and breathes sharply in his nose before calming down. "Go, pack your things. I am taking you back to Winterfell. Ned and Father and Benjen will join us later, Father already told me of his plans. Your marriage to Robert Baratheon is to happen post haste."
"So you're going to lock me up and then send me away, just because of this?" Lyanna asks, waving the roses around. "It is not my fault! I want to stay, I want to go to the final feast."
"And have the Martells swarm around you and burn you like the suns they are? No. Never. Lyanna, I am doing this for your own good."
"If you loved me you wouldn't do this!" Lyanna cries, and her tears begin in earnest now as she throws down the crown that she never wanted.
"If I loved you less I would go and kill Rhaegar Targaryen, along with Oberyn Martell and all the rest of them. But for your sake, I won't."
He softens as he pulls her to him, and even though Lyanna fights her brother, eventually she gives him. She will never forgive him for this, never forgive the fact that in the end he was just going to give her over to Robert Baratheon and stop fighting for her, but she lets him hold her.
Maybe she had fallen in love with Rhaegar after his song, after he had laughed at her, after he had placed the roses in her lap, but she hardly knew him. But Brandon she knew, and Brandon was family.
.
There is snow on the ground the farther up they get, and she finds herself relieved at the sight of it. Perhaps this was a false spring, and maybe her father will go back to the earlier betrothal agreement and make sure that they wedding doesn't happen until the end of winter.
It is a thin hope, stringy and emaciated, but still one that she clings too.
Lyanna and Brandon don't speak the entire way up north, because she is still angry at her brother, and angry at Rhaegar for this too. If she ever sees him again—which she can guarantee that she will not—she would love to scream at him for this unjustice.
She hadn't realized that their conversation would spark this. She had never meant to seduce him, or whatever else it was that the women are probably whispering to themselves now. She is sure that Princess Elia and Lady Ashara hate her now, and she finds herself saddened by that. Lyanna had truly liked them.
They are only a days ride away when Brandon finally lets her go to the woods to piss by herself. He had been with her every other time, looking away awkwardly every time she had to go, but this close to home he finally lets go.
When Lyanna is finally done she stands up and adjusts her skirts to begin the trek back to camp and back to her brother. She doesn't like being at odds with him, but this is absolutely necessary in his eyes.
She's at the edges when she feels a hand grab her and cover her mouth, dragging his body covered in armor to hers. Lyanna immediately bites his hand and whirls around when he lets go in surprise. She is about to scream when the man says, "Lyanna, don't-"
She would recognize that voice anywhere. "Rhaegar?" she whispers, and immediately whirls around, searching for Brandon.
"Come with me. Please."
She stares at him, dumbfounded by this man. "How can you ask that of me? I'm sent back to exile because of you! My marriage to Robert Baratheon is to happen immediately, the Martells all hate me because of the slight on their princess! I do not want to see you."
His face in a melancholy expression is one of the most beautiful things that she has ever seen. "You speak of your impending marriage to the stag, but I can hear myself how unhappy you are at the prospect. Don't you want a choice?"
Choice. It all comes down to that word again. All Lyanna had ever wanted was a choice, all she had ever wanted was a life. She cannot have one if she's stuck in Storm's End for the rest of her life.
"Of course I do, you know I do."
Slowly, carefully, Rhaegar reaches for her hand. "Then choose me."
Meeting his hand halfway with her own, she does.
.
As they ride together, knights of the Kingsguard with them, Rhaegar tells her, "We can be wed, you know."
"Princess Elia," Lyanna responds.
"The Targaryen kings of old had more than one wife. I can do the same."
"But you aren't even a king. You're just a prince, and a prince with poor judgment at that."
He smiles at her comment. "I love you, Lyanna. I truly do, and I want you to be my wife, to be mine and mine alone."
Lyanna does not think, But you will not be fully mine. Lyanna does not think You are also Elia's. Lyanna does not think Why do we need vows, when you have already broken so many?
Instead, Lyanna thinks, I am going to have a choice, and says yes.
They get married in front of a weirwood tree, a country septon leading the ceremony. She does not have a cloak, so she borrows a white one from Sir Arthur Dayne, and tries not to think about his sister as she does so.
She smiles as she says the words, and Rhaegar smiles back and she wonders if he had smiled at his own wedding in the High Sept of Baelor.
.
Lyanna finally sees Dorne. Rheagar holds her hand the entire time that she walks up the steps of the tower and looks out one of the windows.
Dorne is more beautiful than she remembers, and more deadly. For some reason she hadn't imagined that there would be no water anywhere until their party had to go a full day without any. They'd had to dig deep holes to find some, or rip open cactus, but find it they did.
"I love you," Lyanna tells Rhaegar for the first time after they are done fucking and he is behind her, naked. The stars are so bright here, brighter than they are in Winterfell, and she feels like she is a child seeing them for the first time.
"As I love you," he responds.
Under the stars and in the Tower of Joy, this is the happiest time of their marriage.
.
Ravens have been coming and going for weeks before Lyanna realizes that she has not bled in five months. She wants to tell Rhaegar, wants to announce that she is carrying one of his children (Even after all this she cannot think of herself as above Elia, as a princess herself. Lyanna will never carry Rhaegar's heir.) but she doesn't know how.
Her husband is distracted often, and comes to her for comfort less and less. She can tell that he is getting restless, but he doesn't do anything other than go and brush his horses before coming back to her.
One night she knows that everything is about to change. Rhaegar kneels in front of where she is sitting on the bed and grabs her hands. "I have something to tell you," he whispers, much like the first night that they met.
"Your brother Brandon is dead."
"What?" Lyanna hisses, pulling away from him. Brandon cannot be dead. The Brandon that Lyanna remembers in that moment isn't the Brandon that she had last saw, quiet and firm. Instead he is the one that laughed with her until she had nearly pissed herself, the one that had carried her with him everywhere when he was small, the one that had taught her how to fight with long sticks.
She vomits then, in the corner of the room, and drops to her knees. She can feel Rhaegar behind her as he grabs her shoulders. "Your father too. I am so sorry."
If there was anything left in her stomach Lyanna would get rid of it, but she already has so swallows. "How?" she whispers.
"Your father burned. Your brother was choked to death."
"So this is the work of your father, then?" Lyanna pulls away from him a second time. "I have to go, I have to leave. I have to go north. Ned won't stand for this. He'll go to King's Landing too and try to give Aerys everything that he deserves because of me. This is because of me."
"No. You can't leave. I am going. A rebellion has started, Robert Baratheon at the head of it. It must get crushed before this gets too far."
"I will go with you," Lyanna insists, grabbing his arm. "I can help stop this-"
"No!" Rhaegar says loudly, more loudly than she has ever heard them talk. "You're my wife now, and they'll take you away now, give you to Robert Baratheon-"
"How many people have died because of us, Rhaegar? How many more will die? This is madness, I am the one that must-"
"You are not leaving this tower," Rhaegar tells her finally. "I am the only one who is leaving tonight, and I am taking your horse with me and leaving three men here to protect you. I'm sorry, Lyanna."
"If you do this," Lyanna hisses, standing up tall and meeting his eyes, "I will never forgive you. If you loved me you would not do this."
Her words echo the last things that she had ever told Brandon, but she does not want to think of that, does not want to think of dying the way that Brandon had, because of fire and blood.
Lyanna was right. Rhaegar had burned her after all.
"I love you," he says over his shoulder as he leaves, and she says nothing at all, and that is the last time Lyanna Stark saw Rhaegar Targaryen.
.
Her body swells and she knows that the Kingsguard talk among themselves about her condition. The only one that ever truly tells her anything is Arthur Dayne, and she is more grateful to him that she could ever say.
"Do you know the latest news?" Lyanna asks him.
"I'm sorry, my lady, but the last raven we had came last week. You do not need to worry about the war, however. You need to worry about your child. Rhaegar would never forgive me if you had your child too soon."
And died. The words hang in the air, but Ser Arthur doesn't say them and Lyanna is eternally grateful to him for that.
.
Lyanna has never wished for death, not even in the months spent alone in the Tower of Joy, but she does when her pains coming, tearing rapidly through her minutes.
Knights are good in battle, but useless in the birthing bed, she is sure to learn. The only one who is truly of any use is Arthur Dayne, and the only thing that he does is hold her hand and puts a rag in her mouth before she bites her tongue off with her scream.
"You can do this, my lady," he tells her, and she wants to scream at him for encouraging her, even though he is helping in the only way that she can. What she wouldn't give for Maester Luwin or even Old Nan, in that moment.
What she wouldn't give for death.
An alarm is started as she gives another push in an attempt to get the babe out of her, and Arthur finally lets go of her hand. "I have to go, my lady, but I will be back."
At that point Lyanna does not care, she just wants the pain to stop. The song of swords sings below her, but she cannot hear them. She does not hear Ser Arthur Dayne's death, and does not hear her brother's foots coming up the steps until he is already there with her.
The baby comes with a cry, and with him Lyanna can feel herself seeping away.
Ned, her darling brother, is the one that cuts the baby from her body and puts him in her arms. It is a boy. She wonders what Rhaegar would have wanted to call him, but then realizes that she does not care.
"Call him Jon," she tells her brother, and he nods. There are tears in his eyes and that is when Lyanna knows that she is going to die. "Promise me, Ned," she whispers now. "Promise me that you will keep him safe."
"I will," Ned, the one brother that she could always depend on, the one she trusted the most, tells her, but Lyanna barely hears him.
By that time, she has already slipped away.